About This Site

My name is Graham and I'm from Canada. In 2010, I had double jaw surgery to correct my class-3 malocclusion (also know as a "severe underbite").

You can follow my day-by-day road to recovery on this blog. It took just over 90 days for my life to return to normal and the changes were well worth the trouble. If your bite has been bothering you for a while, I highly recommend this operation to correct it.

Just as a heads up to my 120 or so committed daily readers (I didn’t even know that many people were interested in the inner workings of jaw surgery, haha), I may turn these daily updates into more of an every-other-day occurrence soon. Less and less is taking place regarding my recovery each day, so I’m only going to make a post if something has actually changed, or if I’ve had an appointment with my doctor.

I must say: I’m becoming awfully tired of tomato and cream of mushroom soup. I think I’m going to commence blending cans of chunky soup pretty soon, just for a shift in flavor. I wonder if the chunks of beef will mix up. My father told me that, when he had this surgery 35 years ago (albeit only his lower jaw), he was wired shut and all he ate for 9 weeks straight was tomato soup and chocolate milkshakes. I’m not so sure I have the discipline to eat the exact same thing for quite that long.

I’m going back to work on Monday. I hope I don’t drool on anyone. I also hope nobody makes the mistake of leaning in to talk to me, because they have a world of bad breath coming their way if they attempt to pull that trick. I’ll be heading home for lunch each day so I can make soup. I’m not a big fan of having to eat with a syringe in front of my coworkers anyway.

It no longer hurts to yawn because I’ve stretched my current elastics so drastically that I can now part my teeth when I feel a yawn coming on. It does, however, still pain me immensely to laugh and smile, and to that end I’ll most likely be skipping out on my family’s Easter Sunday festivities. I’ll be missing street hockey, an amazing meal, board games and good times all around. The thing is, I know I’ll be laughing the entire time, which means it will be nothing more than a day of excruciating pain for me. It seems like no matter what time of the year a person undergoes this surgery, they’re going to have to miss some big event, whether it be Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, or, in my case, Easter.

It is absolutely beautiful outside today, so I’m going to take the dog for a nice, long walk. I’m also going to make a solid effort to forego a nap today in the name of sleeping through the night and, hopefully, resetting my inner clock. I have a feeling I’ll fail to be productive at work in a few days if I continue going to bed at 4:00 am, getting up at noon, and only sleeping for an hour or 2 in that timespan.

Lastly, I received a message from a friend about how confused he was when I was ranting about the luxuries of the acclaimed Magic Bullet the other day. Apparently, it is commonly mixed up with the slang name for an adult bedroom toy. I kid you not. You can read the interesting story for yourself. By the way, everything that runs through my mind is, of course, G-rated, so if any of my comments ever refer to something dirty, you can rest assured it is purely by coincidence. Here’s the story: Magic Bullet: Super Fun Adult Toy or the Greatest Blender ever created?

Want to chat live with other patients?

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and during recovery. There are over 700 people from 50 countries chatting
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11 Comments

thanks again for giving me the chance to harass somebody with all these jaw-related questions 🙂
Today (Day 11 post op) was the day of all days- I got my splint and the stitches removed, yay!
The splint looked pretty terrifying (I am not going to explain the color, but pretty shocking, even though I brushed my teeth 3 times daily) and when the professor removed the stitches it was bleeding so intensely that I had to wash out my mouth for 20 minutes and thought I would pass out.
However, the prof seems to be pretty pleased with the result.
Once I was home I noticed though that my upper and my lower jaw don’t actually sit on top of each other. They only touch on the last two back teeth (which was also the case before the operation, I was under the impression that they would fix this in the operation).
Do you think that they can correct this with the elastics? Has anyone else experienced that?
Thank you so much in advance.
Have a nice weekend 🙂

I am also on liquids, my recovery has been great! I have my jaw wired shut I don’t have elastics it is all wires so I have no space whatsoever to get to the inside of my mouth. From the start the doctor said I will be wired from 6-8 weeks and after that he will do the elastic bands. The swelling is almost all gone. I was going out without any problems I even drive within the first week. What I can’t do is go back to work (I can’t speak at all – disability for 2 months) I have no pain at all just pressure. I was able to smile fairly early I’m glad I’m healing up well. I thought it would be a misery but I feel 100%

A&D worked a lot better than Vaseline 😉 I used it from the beginning and no peeling or cracking it works wonders.

Hii, well I have posted to you a few times, I have had my surgeory and now on day 11, I have been so fed up with using a seringe I have resulted to using a baby spoon as I have a gap I can fit the spoon into, I haven’t been that swollen really I mean yes my face looks like I have had a few rounds with Mike Tyson but its not as bad as I thought, as for numbness I have been very surprised because I can feel about 3 1/4 of my bottom lip and chin but other than that everything from my eyes down is numb, the roof of my mouth has started to get feeling back whic has been making me heive and nearly be sick because of referring on my tongue on my mouth, I REALLLYYY REALLLYYY Want to give y teeth a good brush never felt so gross!! Pain wise I am only having codine before I go to bed now because it has been making my blood pressure drop and making me pass out ended up a ambulance taking me to hospital a few times, so I am only taking paracetamol and a tablet that is like ibruprofen that you dissolve and it’s ment to be a anti inflammatory, other than that no meds, I am starting to get to there’s up stage, if I could feel my face and not be numb I could cope but it’s so fustrating when my face is tingling and itchy but I can’t feel me touch it or scratch, and the pins and needles feeling in my upper lip really hurts A LOT !! Lol yawning hurts a lot and I am starting to get spazaming in my lower jaw at night, erm don’t know what else really other than the end needs to come NOW only got 3 1/2 weeks till my boyfriend comes bac from Afghanistan as I want to feel him kiss me and not look like I have hamster cheeks with a fat lip and nose, but even thought I hate the recovery I still think its worth it 😀 xxx

Jaydien, going “a few rounds with Mike Tyson” is probably not a bad way to describe the initial swelling. You’ll be able to brush very soon (in fact, by the time you read this, hopefully you are brushing). You’ll certainly be able to kiss your boyfriend when he returns, but it might not be as elegant as you may have dreamed. However, within a couple of months from today, you should be back in perfect working order. I’m glad you’re keeping positive and feel the surgery is worthwhile!

Hey Graham,
My mom found your website and showed it to me the first few days of my recovery. I had lower jaw surgery so not as extensive as yours. It’s really helped reading and comparing my progress. I’m counting calories each day to try to hit 1800cal. My syringe started breaking but I learned a new trick. An icing bag for cake decorating is pretty easy to operate and very effective for getting mashed potatoes, applesauce, puréed meat or any other semisolid food you feel like trying down the hatch.

Maura, that’s quite a creative way to get food in! I hope your recovery is going much more quickly than mine. Enjoy every “bite” of food and you’ll be back to eating like a civilized person in on time at all. =)

I can’t believe how lucky I am, I look like a toddled trying to eat, food everywhere. Sure you know 😉 Almost 2 weeks gone now, very exciting! I <3 Vaseline! After you got your elastics off for eating did you chew food? Cos I am kinda scared to atm, I just swallow things.

Ajka, you can eat anything your heart desires once your elastics are off, but remember to chew slowly and let your pain be your guide. I would avoid hard foods like nuts and tough foods like steak for the first week or so until your jaw strengthens again. Chewing gum all day long is a great way to rebuild the muscles in your jaw as well!

Hey!
Your blog is awesome! Love your reciovery timeline. I am on day 11 and my surgeon told me I can take my elastics off for eating on day 8 so been sucking through a straw at hearts content 🙂 When you say it hurts to smile, is it because your lips are dry or some other reason cos I have no trouble smiling for a few days now. I’ve been up and about since day 5, hate being locked in the house but the fitness thing is quite apparent, I cannot believe how quickly you loose fitness! Wishing you the best of luck! 🙂

Ajka, that’s great to hear that you’re already able to remove your elastics when for meals—lucky you!

It hurt for me to smile early on solely because, you guessed it, my lips were dry. They would crack open every time I grinned. Eventually, I started using Vaseline on them and that problem went away within days.

“Over the past several years, I’ve done my best to respond to every comment on this blog, but unfortunately I no longer have the time to do so. If you have questions about jaw surgery and want to connect with others on this journey, please join the live chat group. Don't worry — it's free!”